In June 2011, Morgan
Stanley Smith Barney (MSSB) allowed a test group of 600 advisers, almost full
use of LinkedIn and restricted use of Twitter and after a yearlong trial the
Wall Street firm allowed 17,000 financial advisers partial access to Twitter
and LinkedIn significantly increasing its social media presence. According to the 600 advisors involved in the trial, 40%
cited new business through their LinkedIn & Twitter use, and of those 240,
60% said those new customers had more than $1 million worth of assets. According
to Lauren W. Boyman, the firm’s head of social media, using Twitter &
LinkedIn has helped financial advisers win more business over the past year and
Advisers who have used the platforms have come to think of LinkedIn as a tool
for networking and finding clients, while Twitter allows them to have more
direct marketing campaigns. The full social media roll out across Morgan
Stanley Smith Barney allowing access to all 17,000 advisers was always there
and the firm had to do the trial to make sure that it has the capability &
policy in place so that they can monitor, archive and manage the social media
content as there are stringent regulations by the Financial regulators like SEC
who had mandated the same rule & guidelines as in the case of email and
physical communications & content.
Morgan Stanley’s risk management committee has given the go-ahead for all
of the retail brokerage’s financial advisers to use the two sites.To
comply with stringent rules
governing what and how financial advisers & bankers can communicate,
financial advisers of the firm will tweet only prewritten tweets from preapproved
library and submit all LinkedIn postings for approval, using software designed
by Socialware, and through this software the firm
tracks and captures communication of its brokers and retains it for regulators.
For using LinkedIn, advisers have to set up a
profile that discusses their practice and specialties, receive compliance training, submit
all LinkedIn postings for approval and can use all the LinkedIn functions--from requesting an introduction to
search features to joining groups which are powerful networking tools and thus
increase business. In case of Twitter account advisers can only tweet
prewritten tweets from preapproved library, which contains
content related to reports on market moves; the firm’s research on investment
strategy; wealth management topics such as retirement, women and wealth and
divorce; and general lifestyle content. According to Lauren Boyman, wealth management
themes tend to do particularly well, and are frequently retweeted on Twitter.
In case MSSB Advisors require
help with the LinkedIn, Twitter & their business usage have to contact firm’s
business development organization which will guide them in term of how to use
the sites and also a call center is established to answer adviser questions and
finally advisers can also seek additional coaching from technology vendor
Socialware. A lot of financial advice is emerging
from many growing sources and technologies like blogs, Twitter, and LinkedIn,
etc. and all the Financial Institutions like Retail Banks, Wealth management
Firms, Investment Banks, Asset Management firms, etc. have to see this content
as a competitive threat and should also make themselves present on the various
social media platforms as the customers are becoming more social media savvy
and social media has become an integral part of their day to day life. MSSB is successfully using social media in client
interaction & Business Development.